


Rarely Pure and Never Simple

by andthenshesaid-write (ladyknight1512)



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Discussion of Infidelity, M/M, Not between Harry and Eggsy, Past Eggsy/Tilde, Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Trapped in a Train, discussion of divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23293204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknight1512/pseuds/andthenshesaid-write
Summary: Eggsy and Harry get stuck in a train. Some important things need to be said.Written for Lock Down Fest 2020.
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 102
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	Rarely Pure and Never Simple

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _The Importance of Being Earnest_ by Oscar Wilde.

Eggsy hears the whoosh of the shuttle doors opening as he’s trudging down the corridor towards the platform and he bursts forward like a sprinter off the starting line. The shuttles come every seven minutes, on a constant loop between the shop and their new headquarters, but he’s a millennial through and through, and he’s had a long day of putting the recruits through their paces, so he’s not keen to wait around for the next shuttle to show up if he doesn’t have to. Plus, there’s a storm heading towards London and he’d really like to be home in front of the telly by the time it hits.

His bag thumps against his side as he careens around the corner, yelling, “Hold the doors!”

One hand, belonging to whoever’s already sitting inside, curls around the edge of one door to stop it closing. Eggsy surges inside as the shuttle starts the angry beeping that signals that the doors are closing in ten seconds, so you’d better get out of the way or lose a limb.

Eggsy throws himself into a seat, tosses his bag into the empty one beside him and only then looks up at the person sitting opposite. His breath catches.

“Harry.”

Harry straightens his shoulders and clasps his hands in his lap. “Good evening, Eggsy.”

His voice is calm, measured, like it always is and always has been. Like they speak all the time. Like they haven’t been avoiding each other for months.

The doors lock with a snick and the shuttle glides away from the platform so smoothly it’s almost unnoticeable. 

The silence is heavy, broken only by the gentle slip of the wheels against the tracks. Harry’s gaze slides to the window, a habit from when he’s in the back of his cab, but right now they’re miles underground and there’s nothing to see except the concrete walls of the tunnel.

It’s only a half hour trip to London. Just thirty minutes that they’ll have to share this space. Still, the shuttle is built to only seat four people and it feels much smaller, so if it wanted to move any faster Eggsy wouldn’t complain. 

Harry’s cologne is faint at the end of the day but still noticeable, spicy and warm, in the enclosed space. Even now, it makes Eggsy feel safe, like he can let all the tension bleed out of his body. If he closes his eyes, the smell of it still takes him back to those 24 hours they spent together when Eggsy was a recruit — he’s back being taught about lighter-hand grenades and shoe knives, and hurrying up the street to keep pace with Harry’s easy, longer stride.

They’ve been in the shuttle for about fifteen minutes when the lights set into the ceiling flicker and then go dark. A dull droning sound fills the air as the shuttle powers down but they continue to rocket forward under its momentum until they finally begin to slow and then ultimately grind to a halt.

They’re not sitting in complete darkness — the tunnel has emergency lights placed at regular intervals and there’s one not far away. The edges of Harry’s face are lit by that weak glow, which catches on his glasses so that his eyes look briefly otherworldly. 

“The power’s gone out,” Harry says, as if Eggsy couldn’t work that one out for himself. “Probably from the storm that was coming through.”

“D’you think we’ll be down here long?”

“I shouldn’t think so. The backup generators will kick in soon enough, but they power headquarters first and foremost.”

Eggsy nods, although Harry probably can’t see it. So much for his thirty minute trip. What are they supposed to do now? Just sit in silence in the dark?

That seems to be Harry’s solution; Eggsy wouldn’t even know he was there he’s so silent and still, except that his sight is adjusting to the darkness now and he can just make out the thin line of Harry’s mouth.

There’s something about the dark that makes him want to speak. It’s been so long since they talked, or even just exchanged a polite nod in the halls when their paths happened to cross. He can feel all the words he’s held in clawing at the back of his throat and he swallows hard to force them down. He shifts in his seat and feels Harry’s gaze trip to him.

But maybe this is the only moment they’re going to get. Trapped here, alone together, maybe now is the only time they’ll actually be able to talk it all out. If they manage that, maybe one day they can get back to the friendship they had had before, if nothing else. It’s funny how he can fling himself out of a building or drive a car into a lake without a second thought, but broaching this conversation makes his palms sweat.

“You sent me away.” Eggsy’s voice is smaller than he would like. “Almost three years I was gone and then almost as soon as I was back you shipped me off to Statesman.”

The silence emanating from Harry’s side of the shuttle is deafening. How long can Eggsy push this if Harry refuses to speak? How long can he keep saying all the things he’s wanted to say without acknowledgment before his pride wins and he just lets it go?

“Harry—”

“You wanted to go.”

He’s briefly shocked that Harry has spoken at all. At least he’s not denying it. Eggsy can respect that. Too bad he’s wrong.

“I didn’t.” The words leave him in a rush, like he’s worried that if he lets the silence sit for too long the conversation will be over before it’s even begun.

“You needed to get away from … everything. Everyone. You needed to sort yourself out and recover. I know the breakdown of your marriage was hard.”

Hearing it straight out of Harry’s mouth like that makes his skin prickle. No one talks about the fact that Eggsy had been married. Not to his face anyway; he’s sure people have talked about it behind his back. When he’d first come back to Kingsman, he’d seen the way people would eye him as he passed, and heard the whispers pick up behind him when he’d rounded a corner.

He and Tilde had had one year of mostly wedded bliss, followed by one year of disintegration, until the day he couldn’t look her in the eyes over breakfast. He had loved her. He _had_. He had just never realised that sometimes love isn’t enough.

The divorce was quick and oddly painless, and Eggsy had reported back to Kingsman eager to return to his “real” life, only to find it wasn’t that simple. After all, it was hard to be a spy when you’d been married to the Crown Princess of Sweden.

They stuck him in the mission research team at first. He didn’t complain because it was that or facial reconstruction and, while he likes being an agent, he also likes his face. It’s a good face. He’s never had any complaints.

So it was four months of that and then he’d been told that Harry — _Arthur_ — wanted him to go to Statesman to learn more about their training techniques even though, as part of mission research, Eggsy didn’t even report to Arthur anymore. But Arthur always got what Arthur wanted. Eggsy had spent six months in Kentucky and then been called back to babysit his very own flock of Kingsman hopefuls. And in all that time, he and Harry hadn’t said a single word directly to each other. Until now.

“The breakdown of my marriage wasn’t what I needed to sort out.”

“No?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. It’s not gentlemanly.”

“On the contrary.” Harry recrosses his legs and that just makes the space seem smaller. “A gentleman never brings up something that might be awkward in conversation. It’s why we spend so much time talking about the weather and stock portfolios.”

Eggsy’s jaw tightens. “That’s what you’re gonna call it? ‘Something awkward’?”

Harry breathes out a soft sigh. He sounds weary but it just makes Eggsy want to push him further. Harry has been an agent so long that keeping his feelings to himself is second nature now. He has no tells except the ones he allows people to see. Eggsy has seen more than most people but not for a long time, since before the divorce. That Harry has allowed him even this feels like a door appearing in the wall that’s been built between them.

“It should never have happened, especially while you were still married.”

The night they spent together comes back to him sometimes, in snapshots blurred around the edges by too much alcohol: Harry mixing him a drink. Their eyes catching and holding in the dim yellow lamplight. The clink of the ice in his glass loud in the deepening silence. The force of their mouths crashing together, no time for gentleness between them. The relief of finally being able to suck a mark into the delicate skin under Harry’s jaw. The roar of his heartbeat in his ears and the ragged breaths passing between them. Harry’s broad hands and long fingers digging into his waist as Eggsy fumbled with the button on his trousers.

“I’m not married now.”

“You made it very clear that you wouldn’t welcome my attention.” There’s a tightness in Harry’s voice that isn’t usually there and Eggsy can’t place it, doesn’t know what it means, but he knows what Harry is talking about.

He fiddles with the signet ring on his finger. “Alright, yeah. That’s fair. ‘M not tryin’ to make excuses but I woke up the next morning and you was just lyin’ there asleep and I freaked out and I took off. I don’t … I never did things like that, y’know? I never went behind someone’s back like that. I didn’t regret it at the time and, yeah, things weren’t great with me and Tilde, but she didn’t deserve that.”

“But I did.”

“What? No! Course not! But you was different. I owed her my loyalty. She was my wife!”

Even through the dim light, Eggsy can see Harry’s face harden. “No one told you to marry her, Eggsy!”

Eggsy recoils but there’s no escape from the way Harry’s voice fills the shuttle. He gets it then. Harry is angry. Not in that way he was after Eggsy failed the dog test, which was a flash of disappointed rage. No, this is a slow, simmering heat, finally allowed to boil over.

It makes Eggsy’s fists clench; he fights to keep this voice even. “‘Having something to lose makes life worth living.’ _You_ told me that.”

“You admitted yourself you had already lost her. You could have moved on to someone else.”

“Then maybe you should’ve told me there was another option!”

His words ring around them, the accusation lingering. Harry removes his glasses to rub the inner corners of his eyes and Eggsy’s shoulders loosen.

Harry puts his glasses back on and meets Eggsy’s gaze as best he can in the darkness. “Perhaps I should have, but I didn’t consider myself an option at the time. You could have had anyone you wanted, my dear. Why on earth would you want me?”

The question wipes Eggsy’s mind of everything else. He’s stunned by how much Harry doesn’t seem to understand. There’s never been anyone who held Eggsy’s attention like Harry does. There’s never been anyone Eggsy wanted to please more.

“I used to wonder how much of that night was just about finally finding a reason to leave Tilde.”

Maybe Harry’s surprised by the abrupt redirection because his head cocks slightly to the side. “‘Used to’?”

“Yeah.” Eggsy nods slowly. “Then I remembered how much of my relationship with her was just about filling the hole you left behind when you died. It was always you, Harry. Everything else was just … killing time.”

“Then why did you marry her if it wasn’t what you wanted?”

Eggsy shrugs and looks down to fiddle with his cuffs. “I gave her my word.”

Harry’s face softens. “Oh, Eggsy.”

The shuttle hums and the lights flare on so suddenly that they have to blink away tears from the brightness. The shuttle lurches into motion and sets them back off towards London. Eggsy’s head thunks back against his seat; his stomach rolls. Getting all this out in the open feels like a load lifted off his back, but nothing feels resolved. They obviously both made assumptions about the situation but there’s nothing they can do about that now. Where do they go from here?

The last fifteen minutes into London feel calm in a way nothing has for years. When they arrive at the shop platform and the doors open, Eggsy waves a hand for Harry to precede him and is quietly pleased when Harry waits for him. They ride the lift back up to the fitting room and leave the shop; Harry is shortening his longer stride so that Eggsy doesn’t have to hurry to keep up.

It’s not raining yet but the clouds are gathering in the distance, angry and heavy. A Kingsman cab is idling at the kerb. 

“We’ve both made something of a mess of things,” Harry says.

Eggsy huffs a laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth curls into a soft smile that Eggsy desperately wants to taste. He almost sways forward but holds himself back — they have a chance now to maybe fix this and he doesn’t want to ruin it by rushing ahead.

Harry gestures to the cab. “May I drop you home?”

“Nah, I’d rather walk. It’s not far. Thanks, though.”

Harry’s gaze drifts from Eggsy’s face to the cab and back again. “Then may I walk with you?”

A grin spreads across Eggsy’s face before he can swallow it down and he nods. “I’d like that.”

They turn up the street and fall easily into step. The cab follows at a discrete distance.

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog on [tumblr](https://andthenshesaid-write.tumblr.com/post/613455962536280064/rarely-pure-and-never-simple).


End file.
